


Find new ways to fall apart

by queerly_it_is



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: First Time, Hand Jobs, Love Confessions, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Post-Coital Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerly_it_is/pseuds/queerly_it_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no way out.</p>
<p>There’s been no way out so many times, so many close calls where they’ve sprinted to the edge and then staggered back from it, but this... Stiles can’t feel it. Can’t feel that last paper-thin bit of hope that somehow they’ll get through it okay. The last time, when he’d been on the outside of the wall screaming Scott’s name and knowing, just knowing he was too late, sliding to the floor with that screaming quiet crushing him, suddenly no point to anything, not fighting or staying on his feet or taking his next breath.</p>
<p>At least they’re together this time.</p>
<p>[Written for prompt: <em> Stiles confesses his feelings to Scott when he thinks they're about to die, but has to deal with the consequences when they don't </em>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find new ways to fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Dea, with thanks to Kami for the beta.

There’s no way out.

There’s been no way out so many times, so many close calls where they’ve sprinted to the edge and then staggered back from it, but this... Stiles can’t feel it. Can’t feel that last paper-thin bit of hope that somehow they’ll get through it okay. The last time, when he’d been on the outside of the wall screaming Scott’s name and knowing, just _knowing_ he was too late, sliding to the floor with that screaming quiet crushing him, suddenly no point to anything, not fighting or staying on his feet or taking his next breath.

At least they’re together this time.

“Time for Plan B huh?” he says, sitting next to Scott, both of them literally with their backs to the classroom wall, watching the door with its flimsy barricade of broken furniture and the slowly-thinning line of mountain ash. Stiles doesn’t have enough belief for this. He probably can’t even stand up now that he’s down.

Scott looks over at him, blood on his mouth, eyes still faintly red. “Yeah. Now’d be good.”

Stiles nods. “Right. Plan B.” He tries to smile, but it probably comes out a little fake, too much like a knife wound. “You got one?”

The little snort Scott manages makes him wince, broken ribs still not healed. Stiles can’t tell if his healing’s getting slower or if it’s just stopped; all those hits he took getting the others out drained him pretty badly, not to mention saving the stragglers trying to get out of the school and fighting those _things_ at the same time. He got them all out though, with just Stiles too stubborn to listen until finally they were forced in here. Too stubborn to leave and too afraid of having to listen to Scott die and then being expected to keep going. He’s not Scott and he’s not his dad; he doesn’t have the kind of strength it’d take to outlive anyone else.

“Plan B was to get everyone out, get them away from here,” Scott says softly, looking at the bottom of the door where the shadows are leaking under, sharp and twisting, pushing at the mountain ash.

“While you stayed behind,” Stiles finishes, no real fight in it, just the sad weight in his chest. No one values Scott’s life less than Scott does, always his own biggest blind spot.

“Seemed like the only way to save the rest of you,” Scott tells him, apologies all over his face. “Those things kept going for me first, so.” He shrugs, shoulders scraping against the wall.

Stiles wants to hit him, wants to kiss him, wants him to be someone who doesn’t have to make those kinds of choices. He wants another chance, because this just isn’t fair. God, his _dad_. He rubs over his pocket, plastic shards of his phone crackling together.

“You couldn’t have been a coward just this once?” he mutters, bitter. He picks up a splintered bit of desk and throws it, watches it hit the wall by the door. One of the creeping, jagged shadows expands, touches it, and it falls apart, just rots away to nothing.

Scott’s still watching him. “I’m sorry,” he says, and Stiles scoffs.

“Yeah I know. Sorry for not being strong enough, fast enough. Sorry you didn’t predict the future and stop this from happening, what the fuck ever.”

“Stiles—”

“Sorry you’re gonna die?” Stiles says, throat trying to close around the words. “That I’m gonna have to watch? That you’re so fucking noble you think other people surviving makes you dying worth it?” He knows he’s not breathing, in the distant way he knows the gash on his forearm is throbbing and the scrapes on his palms are stinging. He knows he’s crying too, hot patter of tears dripping from his chin onto his hands where they’re crumpled, useless in his lap. He just can’t make it mean anything. “Sorry you’re—God, fuck you, Scott. Just—fuck you. It’s not worth it. Nothing's worth it.” He sucks a wet breath through his nose, wipes at his face and then winces, grits his teeth at the sting of salt and all those little wounds reopening.

Scott reaches out and wraps fingers around Stiles’ wrist, pulls his hand close and turns it palm-up. His thumb brushes over the dirty, bleeding cuts, the skin raw and full of splinters. Stiles watches the thin black lines spread up Scott’s forearm and yanks his hand back.

“Don’t,” he says, not looking at Scott. “It’s mine. Maybe you could worry about your own pain for a change instead.”

“Stiles, don’t. Please?” Scott says, and Stiles can’t help looking, can he? Never could. There’s that same lurch in his belly, the one that confused him at twelve and scared him at fifteen, that’s made him angry and happy and terrified and every other thing since. The thing that’s kept him going when he didn’t see the point.

Irony can go fuck itself.

“Let me do this,” Scott basically begs him, hand held out to Stiles. “I can’t do anything else, so let me—”

Stiles kisses him.

Maybe this is his way of not being a coward. Maybe he’s just tired of running, sick of hiding, of lying, of himself, of not getting what he wants.

The least he can do is die with a shred of honesty. Call it following Scott’s example.

Scott’s lips are coppery and chapped but Stiles doesn’t care. He doesn’t move, his hand awkwardly bumping Stiles’ chest and Stiles pushing up on one foot, braced half over him, but Stiles doesn’t care. Scott’s lips are soft and his breath is sour. Stiles’ sliced-apart hands hurt when he puts them on Scott’s face and deepens it, tongue sliding against Scott’s, over his teeth. He gets Scott’s blood in his mouth and it feels like he’s won something. Scott kisses back just barely, like reflex, like petty theft, and a helpless noise cracks like a twig somewhere under Stiles’ sternum. Sometimes the worst thing is getting what you want, especially when you don't deserve to have it.

He slumps back into the wall, breathing hard, shaking not just from balancing on his too-tired limbs, feeling empty already, finished except for the bleeding. Scott’s looking at him like something’s finally gotten through, confused crease between his eyebrows and Stiles’ spit on his open crime-scene mouth, lips smeared pink. His eyes are brown again, so familiar it aches.

Stiles is suddenly and viscerally glad this is the last thing he’s gonna see.

“Wanted to do that since I was eleven,” he says with a snort. “And every day of every year after that once I realised what it meant, even when I knew it was fucked up. Even when I wanted you to hate me, I always wanted to do that more.”

“You don’t have to—,” Scott starts, and Stiles grabs his hand this time, grip like old roots around Scott’s palm.

“I never blamed you for not wanting me,” he says quickly. The mountain ash line is almost gone, what’s left eroded down to a pencil scratch. “I was just glad you were my friend, y’know? Just having you there, having you care about me was enough. Didn’t feel like I had the right to screw that up, not after all the shit I put you through.”

Scott’s holding onto his hand but Stiles doesn’t know if it’s on purpose. “You didn’t—”

“I don’t even know when I realised I wanted more. S'like it was always there, over my shoulder.” He huffs, managing half a real smile. “You’re a really freaking easy guy to love, you know that? I know you don’t think so, but you don’t see yourself like I see you. You’re—” He shakes his head, sniffs, blinking to clear his eyes. “I love you so fucking much, and I don’t want to not say it if we’re—if this is it. Okay? However many ways you can love someone, just—all of them. You’re an asshole for dying and I’m an asshole for not knocking you out and dragging you outta here when I had the chance, but so long as you’re here I’m not—I’m _less_ afraid.” He squeezes Scott’s fingers. “You always made me feel like I could do anything, so I’m doing this while I still can.” And he kisses Scott again, listening to the desks and chairs shoved up against the door collapsing like smoke into a fan, the mountain ash thinning out to nothing. He kisses Scott and jams his eyes shut and listens for the end—

And the door’s splintering—

A sound like a scream right inside his head, high and awful, everything suddenly going cold all over—

He makes a frightened animal noise and clutches Scott’s shirt, buries his face in his neck—

Scott puts an arm around Stiles’ middle and holds onto him—

A tremor runs through the floor, the wall, into his bones. His teeth judder together as it gets worse—

_This is it_ —

And then the end doesn’t come.

The light outside gets stronger, swallows everything, a warmth with no heat washing over them. Scott puts a hand over his eyes and they both flinch away. Then it fades, taking the sound with it.

It all goes still. Except for their breathing, Stiles can’t hear a thing. The classroom’s just a classroom, filthy but totally normal.

“Are they okay?” he hears someone ask out in the hall. The tattered door falls in with a crash and the singing sound of broken glass, kicking up dust and a few small, scattered piles of mountain ash.

Malia bursts in first, then Liam, then Kira, one after another, Lydia with her arms crossed and Mason leaning on his baseball bat like a cane. The last one in is Derek, holding a big glass bell jar with something shifting in it, glowing pale white and gray, getting dimmer as Stiles watches.

“We found them!” Malia turns and shouts out the doorway, and then there’s Deaton, and Scott’s mom, and Stiles’ dad, both of them looking some mix of pissed and scared out of their minds.

“What,” Stiles says, because they’re all just stood there watching and it feels like he has to. Moving reminds him he’s still holding Scott’s shirt in a vice grip, so he lets go and pulls away, too fast probably.

“We found something that worked,” Kira says, grinning now, maybe crying. She nods at the jar Derek’s holding with its barely-noticeable glow, milky light throwing weird shadows on the floor, but normal shadows, just legs and bodies and ruined furniture in dim sketches. “My mom helped. But we didn’t know if we got it ready in time. We thought you might have—”

“We’re okay,” Scott says, and again Stiles can’t help looking at him. Scott meets his eyes for a second and then smiles at the others. “But it was close. Thanks.”

“Right,” Stiles says, swallowing, nodding in a puppet's jerk of his head. “Great work. Excellent. A-plus life saving. Knew you could do it.” He tries to stand by pressing his back into the wall and sliding up, and Malia steps in to grab him by the underarms when he nearly drops heavily back down to the floor. He nods gratefully when she takes his weight and pulls him away from the wall. “I really don’t wanna be in this room anymore,” he tells her, and she helps him to the door, his dad stepping up to his other side like Malia’s not stronger than both of them combined, but Stiles puts an arm around him and leans into his side anyway, wants to curl into him and shut his eyes.

He cranes his head to see Kira and Derek helping Scott up, Deaton holding onto the magic whatever that just saved them, a few white bands swirling around in a greyish soup now, no real light left.

They saved them.

They’re not gonna die.

They’re gonna be okay. Except they’re not.

He catches Scott’s eyes again, and Scott’s expression does... something. Stiles looks away before he can figure out what. Before he has to _know_. His head’s pounding.

God, what the fuck did he do? What did he just _do?_

“Think I’m gonna throw up,” he mumbles, and passes out.

-|-

He gets out of the hospital almost before all his bandages are on, tuning out the talk of displaced spirits trying to possess the nemeton by going through the two people still connected to it, begging off the ‘hey we survived yet another supernatural shitstorm’ get-together by saying he’s really tired and just wants to sleep and maybe shower a couple dozen times, ignoring the protests and insisting his dad’ll drive him home and make sure he’s okay. He doesn’t look at Scott as he walks away, pathetically glad that Scott won’t leave the others and that Melissa won’t let Scott out of her sight until his healing’s back to normal.

Stiles never said he was swearing off cowardice for good.

It doesn’t actually help to shut himself in his room and take his head in his hands, to bend at the waist and call himself every name and curse he knows, but it’s nice to pretend it does. He paces and sits on the bed and stands up again, scrubs himself as raw as he can in the shower with plastic bags taped over his bandages, face turned to the spray while desperately trying to think of anything he could do or say to roll this whole mess back.

_Hey, sorry I confessed to secretly being in love with you for years. That I kissed you. Twice. Didn’t mean a thing. Just a moment of weakness. We cool?_

The worst is that part of him that _isn’t_ sorry. The part of him that’s relieved, even while he wears a hole in the carpet and throws things and drops face-down onto his bed to yell into his pillow, relieved that it’s all out now, that the lie’s over with even if it takes their friendship down with it. Keep a secret long enough and it seeps into you, finds all the little cracks and soft places and crawls in until you can't get rid of it without gutting yourself. How has he not learned that by now?

Yeah, things should be much simpler now.

He presses his bandaged palms into his eyes and tries to breathe instead of being sick, exhausted but totally unable to fall asleep. He lies when his dad asks if he’s really okay, awkwardly taps out replies with the tips of his fingers to Malia and Lydia’s texts, and pretends the lack of one from Scott doesn’t hurt at all.

_This is just the start_ , he forces himself to think, fingers awkwardly clenched around his (third) new phone as he goes back to walking around his room like he’s gonna tire himself out, like he can _get_ any more tired. _Better get used to it._

“Stiles?”

He wheels around, drops the phone, hisses as he bangs his knee against his bedside table.

Scott makes an apologetic face. He’s standing in the doorway, wearing clean clothes and looking all washed up and still pretty as ever, and yep, there’s that lurch again, like a familiar creak in an old house. His heart’s got a loose floorboard. God, this is never gonna work is it?

“You’re missing the party,” he says, aiming high and falling flat. “Derek bought pizza and everything. Liam said something about DVDs. Malia was really excited about the popcorn for some reason.”

“I told them I’d be late. Said I had something important to check on first,” Scott says, and Stiles stomach twists painfully on itself.

He forces himself to stand there like his spine’s been swapped out for an iron bar. If this is how Scott wants to do it then fine, Stiles can take it. It was always gonna be the gentle let-down, right? Scott’s too nice just to tell him to fuck off. He’d never kick him out of the pack or try and divvy up their friends or whatever, no matter how Stiles screwed things up. No, instead he’s gonna kindly, softly and carefully rip Stiles’ heart up, and probably apologize for making a mess afterwards. Super.

Maybe he could even give back a little, lay into Scott about how it's kinda unfair to always stand in front of the gun and hoard the bullets. How he's never had enough sense to draw a line and tell Stiles not to cross it. How they could've avoided this if Scott had ever done anything to make loving him a waste of time. Right. But hey, Stiles took the bullet this time at least, can feel it lodged in his chest and everything. No big deal if it's got someone else's name written on it.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, looking around the room. “Someone here other than me?”

Scott almost flinches. Stiles really didn’t think he could feel more like run-over crap, but there we go.

“Don’t do that,” Scott says, sounding tired, and Stiles notices the circles under his eyes, the slump of his shoulders, and can’t find the willpower to resent the tug of worry that nearly drags him closer. “You know it’s not like that.”

Stiles nods, says, “Sorry,” pulling his lips between his teeth and looking at his feet. When he risks a glance back up, Scott’s taken a couple of steps into the room, slow and wary with his hands out like Stiles might hit him. Like he’s afraid.

That urge to throw up is coming back.

“We need to talk, Stiles,” Scott tells him and it sounds like _sorry_ already.

“No,” Stiles says, holding up a finger. “No we don’t. Nothing good ever happened after someone said ‘we need to talk’. Not talking is what we should be doing here. Vow of silence. Disavow all—”

“That’s not gonna work,” Scott breaks in, and now it’s Stiles’ turn to flinch.

“Right,” he says, toes curling into the carpet as he rubs at the back of his neck. “Okay. No, I get it. You’re totally justified in saying—whatever you wanna say.” He looks away, at the wall, bracing like he’s about to take a blow, which he is, but curling up in a ball and protecting his head isn’t gonna do anything for him now. “Come on,” he says, arms raising and dropping, hands clapping on his sides. “Whatever it is, I deserve it. Lemme have it.”

When nothing comes he can’t do anything except flick his eyes back to where Scott’s standing, right in front of him now as it turns out.

“What you said...” Scott starts trailing off and staring at him, and Stiles knows he should just stand there until Scott’s done but the silence is actually physically painful.

“Yeah, that was stupid, huh?” he says, smiling a smile that feels like it’s been staked to his face. “Impending death really messes with me, y’know? Probably would’ve said I was in love with Peter if he’d been there instead of you.” He makes a face. “Alright maybe not _Peter_ , but still, under the circumstances—”

“So you didn’t mean it?” Scott asks, still searching Stiles’ face, eyes gone narrow. “You just said it because... because you thought we were gonna die?”

The lie is right there, a neon sign blinking _DENY-DENY-DENY_ over and over, an escape route Scott’s offering him on a plate, and Stiles just... can’t do it. He can’t. Doesn't even really want to, made his bed and now too tired to get out it. He’s never seen the chance to lie and swerved away harder in his entire life.

Honesty, as it turns out, sticks to you, and its timing really fucking sucks.

“No. No, I meant it,” he says, practically squeezing the words out of the tube of his throat, looking at Scott’s chest instead of into his face. “All of it.” He shrugs a shoulder, body awkward and uncooperative, stomach churning and his hands just stones on the end of his limp rope arms. “I’m really sorry.”

“For being in love with me or for saying it?” Scott asks, and hearing it come out of his mouth like one of those dreams you have where it’s all good and then it turns a corner and suddenly it’s a nightmare. Funny thing is Stiles has had this dream before, both ways.

“Both, I guess,” he says. “Mostly for telling you and wrecking everything, but—yeah, I’m sorry for the rest of it too. I never meant to—to fall in love with you—” he winces. He doesn’t think he’s ever said it out loud to himself, like if he said the words he’d be inviting something like this. Doesn’t look like he was wrong, does it? “I just. Yeah. God, Scott, I’m so so—”

“Say it again,” Scott says, moving one more little step closer, and Stiles’ brain fishtails, eyes darting all over Scott’s face.

“What? No. Why?” he asks, frowning now. Scott wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t do it just to be cruel on purpose so why—

“Say it again now that we’re not about to die,” Scott says, and his voice is different, like he’s teasing Stiles now, eyebrows raised and his mouth curving up. “So I can say it back like I should have.”

“So you—that’s not funny,” Stiles says, flat. And ah, there’s the anger, coming back like it always does, only a little late. “Don’t do that, alright? You’re not—don’t rub it in.”

“I’m not,” Scott says, suddenly serious. He slowly reaches out and Stiles just watches him. “You just surprised me, that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

They’ve gone off the script far enough that he’s run out of ideas. Scott puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, kneading the muscle before it slides to the side of his neck where his shirt collar ends. A faint tingle runs down his back and snowballs into a shiver.

Stiles isn’t totally convinced he didn’t fall asleep after all.

“So... say it again,” Scott tells him, softly, almost whispering, soft eyes pleading. “C’mon, please, or this is gonna get really awkward after I made Kira help me practice and everything.”

“Scott,” Stiles says, shaky, dizzy.

“Stiles,” Scott says back, expectant and smiling. "Say it."

“I—I love you,” Stiles says, voice rusted over and so thin he’s amazed it makes a sound. He clears his throat, swallows with a loud _click_. “I love you,” he says louder, tipping his chin up. _You can't have the bullet back._

Scott grins, a huge glowing beam of a thing right across his face, says, “Good,” and uses the hand on Stiles’ neck to coax him down, until their mouths are almost brushing, until Stiles can feel Scott’s breath on his face and he can’t see anything but Scott’s open, honest expression when his thumb rubs under Stiles’ jaw. “‘Cause I love you back, okay? Stiles, I’ll always love you back, I promise.”

The kiss is different this time, softer, less scary but ten times more overwhelming. This time he’s being _given_ something instead of feeling like he picked a lock or broke a window.

Stiles’ mouth opens under Scott’s tongue and a sound like a ragged whine escapes, his fingers twitch and he grabs at Scott’s arms, the hushed noise of bandages rubbing over Scott’s skin. Scott hums into his mouth and the hand not stroking Stiles’ neck and making goosebumps coat his skin rests on Stiles’ side. Stiles uses Scott’s arms to hold himself up, and when they start laughing between one kiss and another, lips making wet noises that go right to Stiles’ dick, he uses Scott’s arms to keep from leaving the ground altogether.

“How late did you say you’d be,” he asks when their hips knock and he can _feel_ where Scott’s hard and trapped up against the front of his jeans.

Scott laughs, tugs on Stiles’ lip with his teeth. “It was a—” he groans when Stiles rubs them together harder, Scott’s body heat soaking through his shirt, the clean smell of him in his nose, “—a rough estimate.” He puts both hands on Stiles’ face, cool fingers smoothing over the blotchy flush Stiles can feel getting hotter in time with his pulse. When they move out of the kiss a string of spit draws out between their mouths before it breaks, and Stiles’ dick twitches hard watching Scott swipe his bottom lip with his tongue. “Maybe we should slow down,” Scott says, one thumb just touching the corner of Stiles’ mouth. His ears are bright pink. Stiles might want to gnaw on them a little bit. Then he registers what Scott just said and ducks his head back.

“Slow down? Scott, we’ve been at a dead stop for _over a decade_. We get any slower and we’re gonna get blood clots or something.”

“Blood clots?” Scott asks, quirking an eyebrow, smiling.

“From being still for long periods of—look, we can do the whole serious discussion thing and talk about our feelings more later, okay? Can we just...” Stiles waves a hand between them, puts it flat on Scott’s chest, “Y’know, more of this first?” _Before you change your mind_.

“We should probably talk more before we do anything more than this,” Scott says. “We did almost die a few hours ago.”

“Exactly!” Stiles says, prodding Scott’s chest. “We almost died. We almost die all the time and you know, one of these times it’s gonna stick and I’d really really like to touch your dick at least two or three times before that happens, bare minimum.” He sucks in a breath, back of his neck on fire and sweat pricking between his shoulders. “Wow. Too much?”

“Uh,” Scott says, eyes aimed down into the non-space between them. Stiles grins.

“You’re thinking about me touching your dick,” he says, rocking on his heels. Scott’s eyes jerk back up to his and he bites his lip. It’s distracting.

“I’ve been thinking about it since I was fourteen,” Scott says quietly. “Used to jerk off pretending it was you.”

“Shit,” Stiles breathes out. “Wait, used to?”

Scott shrugs. “I try not to now. Felt like I was... I don’t know. Being creepy, I guess?”

“Not creepy,” Stiles says, overfast, because now he's _picturing it_. “Not creepy at all. Feel free to jerk off thinking about me any time you want. I’ll watch. Participate. Offer—” he swallows, “—pointers.”

Scott groans, grinding up against Stiles’ hips like he can’t help himself, both of them shuddering. Stiles puts his hands on Scott’s sides, squeezes the solid warmth of him as hard as he can through the bandages. Fuck, that Scott might let him - _is_ letting him. That Stiles could put a mark on the last few parts of Scott that have never been his.

“My hands aren’t all healed up yet,” he says, not managing to hold back the smile at all. “I might need some help.”

“I can do that,” Scott nods, leaning in to nose under Stiles’ jaw, kissing his neck. “I want to. A lot.”

“I’m free right now,” Stiles says, tipping his head back and shutting his eyes when Scott licks over his throat, scrapes his Adam’s apple with blunt, slick teeth. “You got plans?”

Scott huffs against the soft underside of Stiles’ jaw. “Nothing more important than this,” he mumbles, and Stiles groans when Scott pulls him in with a hand in his waistband, rubs them together hard from belly to mid-thigh.

“Scott,” he whines, “Scott c’mon. More.”

Scott shushes him gently. “Dude, your dad’s downstairs,” but he’s working on tugging down the waistband of Stiles’ sweats, so Stiles ignores the warning. He wonders if this would even rank all that high on the list of things his dad has caught them doing.

There’s no dignified way to describe the noise Stiles makes when Scott pulls his sweats down his thighs and his dick jerks up against his stomach, precome smearing on his shirt, connected to the head by a shining string. Scott nearly rips the buttons off his jeans getting them open, and Stiles gives up trying to hold his head up, drops it against Scott’s shoulder and whines, staring at Scott’s really attractive dick, slick head pushing through foreskin and dark hair leading to the trail on his belly that vanishes under the hem of his rucked-up shirt.

Stiles’ mouth floods so wet so fast he has to swallow three times before he can breathe again. Then Scott’s wrapping his hand around them both, smearing wet from Stiles’ slit with his thumb across them both, and he can’t breathe anyway, can’t even remember why it’s important. He butts his forehead against Scott’s shoulder and Scott twists his hand, both their hips bucking into it, Stiles’ gone twitchy while Scott’s rolling up into his fist, slip-sliding all along Stiles’ dick, heads catching and making his knees shake.

“It’s okay,” Scott says, moves his head so his lips bump against Stiles’ temple. Stiles didn’t know he’d been breathing Scott’s name on repeat, groans and bites his lip. Scott’s fingers squeeze them tighter together and Stiles’ legs buckle as he whimpers. Scott’s free arm catches him around the waist, holds him up so fucking easy, which isn’t helping Stiles’ flimsy effort not to shoot off all over them both or just catch fire or faint again.

“I won’t let you fall,” Scott says, nose in Stiles’ hair, breath burning hot.

“You’re a few years late on that, buddy,” Stiles says with a breathless, unsteady kind of laugh, sucks air through his nose that smells of Scott.

“Smooth,” Scott says, and Stiles would thump his shoulder or something if his arms still worked that well.

“Shut up,” he says, voice caving in, lips sticking to Scott’s shirt. He moans into the fabric when Scott’s thumb sweeps over the head of his dick on the upstroke, can feel the slide of Scott’s foreskin against him, weirdly smooth and driving him up onto his tiptoes trying to fuck into it, chase after it.

“You smell really good,” Scott says, rough, almost a growl. God, Stiles wants to see his eyes. Wants them to be red. “Like sex. You always smell like sex.”

“G-Good to know,” Stiles says, swallowing, hands spasming on Scott’s shoulders and hips flexing even though he can’t get any leverage with Scott taking most of his weight. Heat drips down his spine and floods his belly thinking how little it would take for Scott to just lift him off the floor, use him to get off, maybe hold him up on his dick right there in the middle of the room with Stiles making gasping noises into his shoulder.

“M’gonna come,” he says, right as he does, eyes rolled back and sucking Scott’s shirt into his mouth and putting his teeth against Scott's shoulder, Scott goading him on with little words whispered into his hair, against his ear. He’s sure his feet leave the floor, gut tightened up and shaking as he pulses hot and wet and sticky over his belly, all over Scott’s fingers, the slippery _tap-tap-tap_ getting louder and dirtier as Scott uses his come to keep jerking them both off.

Scott’s almost silent as he comes, arm a solid band around Stiles’ body, breath catching in his throat loud enough for Stiles to hear, a faint broken moan Stiles _needs_ to hear again. He slumps against Stiles, managing to keep them both from crumpling to the floor even if they stagger back a little first.

They kiss, sloppy and off-angle, both of them still trying to get enough air, little tremors running from one to the other like a closed circle, fault lines shoved tight together. Scott rubs his hand on his shirt front and shivers when Stiles slides their hips against each other one last time, both of them still half-hard.

“Bed,” Stiles manages to say, and he feels Scott’s nod, lets himself be turned and carried with his toes just barely dragging on the carpet. Scott lowers him down and then flops on his back next to him, reaches out and puts a hand on Stiles’ chest that Stiles covers with his own.

“Wow,” Scott breathes out, and Stiles turns his head to look at him, finds Scott already facing him. They both laugh, more like a wheeze, stupid grins on their faces.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, wincing as he moves and the gross cooling mess on the bottom of his shirt sticks to his skin. “Next time, we get out of the clothes first, okay?”

“Next time,” Scott says, still staring at him, still flushed, still setting off that lurch in Stiles’ belly.

“Well yeah,” Stiles says slowly. “I mean... this wasn’t a ‘holy shit we’re still alive’ thing was it? ‘Cause you said—”

“I meant it,” Scott tells him quickly, hand spanning out against Stiles’ chest, over where his heart’s probably trying to tunnel its way out, right into Scott’s palm. Figures. “I just wanted to be sure, you know? It’s still...”

“Weird,” Stiles finishes for him, and they both snort. “Yeah, I know.” The yawn sneaks up on him, almost cracks his jaw. “Ow. Fuck.”

“You should sleep,” Scott says, rubbing his chest now, Stiles playing with his fingers.

Stiles licks his lips, coughs a little. “You gonna stay?”

Scott nods. “I’d—yeah, that’d be good.” He smiles, watching Stiles scramble to sit up and pull his shirt off, ball it up and throw it over the end of the bed. Stiles loses his breath again watching Scott pull his own shirt off, kick his jeans off his legs, hand resting on Scott’s side when they move up the bed and lie down facing each other, bare legs tangled up, Stiles with his cold feet between Scott's warmer ones.

“I’m still sorry for earlier,” Scott says, fingers tracing a bruise on Stiles’ ribs. Stiles is weirdly upset Scott's got no wounds for him to look after, not external ones anyway. “I should have—”

“You couldn’t have made me leave,” Stiles says, watching his hand move up and down Scott’s arm. “The others all had their hands full and I wouldn’t have gone. No matter what they said, I never would have left you there alone.” He sighs. “You’re always gonna be the guy who stays, who gets the other people out first.” He forces himself to look Scott in the eye, tries to smile. “And I’m always gonna be the guy who stays with you. If I can't save you then... you go I go. That’s the deal.” _And it might be the only thing that stops you one day._

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay with that,” Scott admits quietly, hand resting on Stiles’ ribcage as it rises and falls. “I don’t know how to be.”

“I don’t expect you to be okay with it,” Stiles tells him, thumb tracing a vein up the soft inside of Scott’s bicep. “I’m never gonna be okay with you sacrificing yourself, no matter what it’s for. We’ll just have to... god, I don’t know. Not die? Almost die less often?”

“Learn to live with it?” Scott asks, eyebrow ticking up.

“With each other,” Stiles says, and Scott huffs through his nose, smiles.

“We’re good at that,” Scott says, yawning now too.

Stiles pulls him closer, Scott’s arm folding around him, hand rubbing his back. He’s never getting enough of this touching thing, even if he ever does get used to being _allowed._

“Sleep,” Scott says again when Stiles groans through another yawn. “I’ll be right here.”

Stiles hums, eyes closed, nose squashed against the ridge of Scott’s collarbone. “Me too,” he mumbles on the end of an overtired, wobbling sigh, because it’s the truth. It’ll always be the truth now, out there for anyone to see. And that’s not a bad thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'We are young' by FUN
> 
> I'm over [here](http://queerly-it-is.tumblr.com) on tumblr :D


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